1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to processes for control of the process of manufacturing semiconductor chips and more particularly to control of production in an integrated circuit manufacturing process.
2. Description of Related Art
See "Guideline for Definition and Measurement of Equipment Reliability, Availability and Maintainability, SEMI International Standards, SEMI E-10-92, pp 61-69 (1993); and Robert C. Leachman, "Closed-loop Measurement of Equipment Efficiency and Equipment Capacity", IEEE/SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference, pp. 115-126 (1995).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,510 of Kraft for "Equipment Performance Apparatus and Method" describes a process control system and a method for yielding improvement in product throughput by using tuned model process control using product and machine parametric data, process control via real time critical equipment transient monitoring, process windowing of critical equipment of equipment transients and machine/product parametric data correlation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,612,886 of Weng for "Method and System for Dynamic Dispatching in Semiconductor Manufacturing Plants" describes WIP management.
See U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,350 of Kline which shows a method for "Scheduling for Multi-Task Manufacturing Equipment" and U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,632 of Kline et al. for "Apparatus and Method for Controlling and Scheduling Processing Machines".